Amino acid metabolism in the Zucker diabetic fatty rat: effects of insulin resistance and of type 2 diabetes

2004 ◽  
Vol 82 (7) ◽  
pp. 506-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enoka P Wijekoon ◽  
Craig Skinner ◽  
Margaret E Brosnan ◽  
John T Brosnan

We investigated amino acid metabolism in the Zucker diabetic fatty (ZDF Gmi fa/fa) rat during the prediabetic insulin-resistant stage and the frank type 2 diabetic stage. Amino acids were measured in plasma, liver, and skeletal muscle, and the ratios of plasma/liver and plasma/skeletal muscle were calculated. At the insulin-resistant stage, the plasma concentrations of the gluconeogenic amino acids aspartate, serine, glutamine, glycine, and histidine were decreased in the ZDF Gmi fa/fa rats, whereas taurine, α-aminoadipic acid, methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, and the 3 branched-chain amino acids were significantly increased. At the diabetic stage, a larger number of gluconeogenic amino acids had decreased plasma concentrations. The 3 branched-chain amino acids had elevated plasma concentrations. In the liver and the skeletal muscles, concentrations of many of the gluconeogenic amino acids were lower at both stages, whereas the levels of 1 or all of the branched-chain amino acids were elevated. These changes in amino acid concentrations are similar to changes seen in type 1 diabetes. It is evident that insulin resistance alone is capable of bringing about many of the changes in amino acid metabolism observed in type 2 diabetes.Key words: plasma amino acids, liver amino acids, muscle amino acids, gluconeogenesis.

2002 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 646-662 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald K. Layman

Exercise produces changes in protein and amino acid metabolism. These changes include degradation of the branched-chain amino acids, production of alanine and glutamine, and changes in protein turnover. One of the amino acid most affected by exercise is the branched-chain amino acid leucine. Recently, there has been an increased understanding of the role of leucine in metabolic regulations and remarkable new findings about the role of leucine in intracellular signaling. Leucine appears to exert a synergistic role with insulin as a regulatory factor in the insulin/phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3-K) signal cascade. Insulin serves to activate the signal pathway, while leucine is essential to enhance or amplify the signal for protein synthesis at the level of peptide initiation. Studies feeding amino acids or leucine soon after exercise suggest that post-exercise consumption of amino acids stimulates recovery of muscle protein synthesis via translation regulations. This review focuses on the unique roles of leucine in amino acid metabolism in skeletal muscle during and after exercise. Key words: branched-chain amino acids, insulin, protein synthesis, skeletal muscle


1990 ◽  
Vol 258 (5) ◽  
pp. E878-E887
Author(s):  
S. Del Prato ◽  
R. A. DeFronzo ◽  
P. Castellino ◽  
J. Wahren ◽  
A. Alvestrand

The effect of epinephrine on amino acid (AA) metabolism was examined in 33 healthy volunteers who participated in four studies. Nine subjects participated in study I, which consisted of four parts: euglycemic insulin clamp, insulin plus epinephrine, insulin plus epinephrine plus propranolol, and insulin plus propranolol. In study II six subjects received epinephrine with hepatic-femoral venous catheterization. In study III five individuals received epinephrine with somatostatin plus basal insulin replacement. In study IV quadriceps muscle biopsy was performed in six subjects after epinephrine or insulin infusion. Both epinephrine and insulin caused a generalized decline in all plasma AA except alanine. With combined epinephrine-insulin infusion, the decrease in plasma AA was additive. Propranolol blocked the hypoaminoacidemic effect of epinephrine but failed to alter the AA lowering action of insulin. Epinephrine, while maintaining basal insulinemia, reduced the catechol's hypoaminoacidemic effect by 39%. After epinephrine, splanchnic alanine uptake increased, but plasma alanine remained constant because of a parallel rise in muscle alanine production. Plasma/intracellular concentrations of branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) and all gluconeogenic amino acids, except alanine, decreased after both epinephrine and insulin. In summary, the effect of epinephrine on plasma/intracellular total, gluconeogenic, and BCAA concentrations is similar to insulin.


2006 ◽  
Vol 400 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan M. Hutson

BCAAs (branched-chain amino acids) are indispensable (essential) amino acids that are required for body protein synthesis. Indispensable amino acids cannot be synthesized by the body and must be acquired from the diet. The BCAA leucine provides hormone-like signals to tissues such as skeletal muscle, indicating overall nutrient sufficiency. BCAA metabolism provides an important transport system to move nitrogen throughout the body for the synthesis of dispensable (non-essential) amino acids, including the neurotransmitter glutamate in the central nervous system. BCAA metabolism is tightly regulated to maintain levels high enough to support these important functions, but at the same time excesses are prevented via stimulation of irreversible disposal pathways. It is well known from inborn errors of BCAA metabolism that dysregulation of the BCAA catabolic pathways that leads to excess BCAAs and their α-keto acid metabolites results in neural dysfunction. In this issue of Biochemical Journal, Joshi and colleagues have disrupted the murine BDK (branched-chain α-keto acid dehydrogenase kinase) gene. This enzyme serves as the brake on BCAA catabolism. The impaired growth and neurological abnormalities observed in this animal show conclusively the importance of tight regulation of indispensable amino acid metabolism.


2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (8) ◽  
pp. 1203-1210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deirdre K Tobias ◽  
Clary Clish ◽  
Samia Mora ◽  
Jun Li ◽  
Liming Liang ◽  
...  

Abstract BACKGROUND Circulating branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs; isoleucine, leucine, valine) are consistently associated with increased type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk, but the relationship with dietary intake of BCAAs is less clear. METHODS The longitudinal Nurses' Health Study II cohort conducted a blood collection from 1996 to 1999. We profiled plasma metabolites among 172 incident T2D cases and 175 age-matched controls from women reporting a history of gestational diabetes before blood draw. We estimated dietary energy-adjusted BCAAs from food frequency questionnaires. We used conditional logistic regression models to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% CI of T2D risk across quartiles (Q1–Q4) of BCAAs, adjusting for age, body mass index (BMI), physical activity, family history, and other established risk factors. We also assessed joint exposure to below/above medians of diet and plasma concentrations, with lower diet/lower plasma as reference. RESULTS Dietary and plasma BCAA concentrations were positively associated with incident T2D (diet Q4 vs Q1 OR = 4.6, CI = 1.6, 13.4; plasma Q4 vs Q1 OR = 4.4, CI = 1.4, 13.4). Modeling the joint association indicated that higher diet BCAAs were associated with T2D when plasma concentrations were also higher (OR = 6.0, CI = 2.1, 17.2) but not when concentrations were lower (OR = 1.6, CI = 0.61, 4.1). Conversely, higher plasma BCAAs were associated with increased T2D for either lower or higher diet. CONCLUSIONS Independent of BMI and other risk factors, higher diet and plasma BCAA concentrations were associated with an increased incident T2D risk among high-risk women with a history of gestational diabetes, supporting impaired BCAA metabolism as conferring T2D risk.


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